Warren LeGarie Rumors
Warren LeGarie, the agent for D’Antoni and Gentry, told ESPN on Wednesday: “I hope there is a basketball solution to this issue rather than a legal one.” The 113-page health and safety protocols sent to teams late Tuesday outlined a multi-layered process for the identification and potential “protection” of team employees designated as higher-risk. All team staffers will fill out a questionnaire probing for individual risk factors, including: asthma; heart problems; ongoing cancer treatments; smoking habits; a body mass index above 40 as a measure of obesity; kidney or liver diseases; and other indications of a compromised immune system.
Salman Ali: Mike D’Antoni’s agent Warren LeGarie on possible extension before the season (@Sirius XM NBA): “It’s not even something we’re even considering right now. Obviously the dynamics of the team have changed… We’re just happy to go into the season and see how things play out.”
Donatas Urbonas: NBA agent Warren LeGarie on Sarunas Jasikevicius potential to become an NBA head coach: “All it takes is one team. If somebody feels they need the type of coach that he is, that their team lacks spirit, somebody who gets into the fray or gets emotional, that could happen” “What would help him greatly, so that people could have a chance to watch him coach, would be ultimately to come here and maybe to coach in Summer league. I understand what people would be concerned about before making him a head coach. Warren LeGarie: “I know from experience that it’s hard for a foreign coach to jump in NBA head coaching. As much as we love European basketball, there are differences. I think Scariolo is doing it right way. D’Antoni was also assistant in Phoenix before becoming head coach”
Jackie MacMullan: “-[Mike D’Antoni’s] about to go into the last year of his deal, and his only crime is not beating the Golden State Warriors, which puts him in great company. So how do you manage [the lack of an extension for D’Antoni]?” Warren LeGarie: “At this point, in Mike I trust – no matter what. I think Mike has proven he can coach a lot of different circumstances, so self-doubt is not one of the things that drives Mike. Right now, we are at the end of the contract, so we fulfill the contract, as it should be. At this point, Mike will coach his heart out. But a lot of times, you also have to feel you’re in an environment that supports you, that values what you do, and they don’t come up with artificial qualifications of what makes you a good coach or not. Getting to the second round [of the playoffs] is probably a lot of teams’ dream right now. Mike has made a habit of it. Also, the number of wins. If [the Rockets] don’t value it, I will tell you, other people do.”
Steve Kyler: Warren LeGarie talks about why the Thomas and Mack Center games were cancelled. Engineers checking the structure. Games could continue in Cox Pavilion.
“Absolutely, Zion is helping out a ton,” LeGarie told The Athletic while also noting a handful of previous prospects generated packed houses on the UNLV campus. Fans of the Los Angeles Lakers always dominate the Thomas & Mack Arena, but the presence of rookie Lonzo Ball led to sellouts in 2017.
Ben Golliver: Las Vegas Summer League organizer Warren LeGarie says Pelicans/Knicks game in Thomas & Mack was canceled in part due to overhead scoreboard. Games in Cox Pavilion are continuing because there’s no overhead scoreboard.
Rockets, D'Antoni not close on contract extension
While the discussion is reopened, the two sides aren’t close to finalizing a deal yet. “Nothing has changed,” LeGarie said. “That is the offer, but it is not one we are willing to take.”
While the buyout was an important piece, it wasn’t the only issue with the original offer. LaGarie said D’Antoni is worth more than what he’s being offered. The Rockets’ base salary offer of $5 million is shy of other recent contracts for veteran coaches. “They know our position, so now it’s up to them,” LaGarie said.
D’Antoni’s camp rejected the extension offer, but he remained enthusiastically committed to coaching the remainder of his current contract, which ends next year. D’Antoni is set to make $4.5 million next season. According to sources, the buyout language from the original offer was removed when the two sides started talking again.
The Rockets and Mike D’Antoni are back in discussions regarding a contract extension for the head coach. Sources confirm Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta and general manager Daryl Morey visited D’Antoni at his home in West Virginia to talk about his future with the team. D’Antoni’s agent, Warren LaGarie was not a part of that gathering.
Mark Berman: Mike D’Antoni’s agent, Warren LeGarie, acknowledges Tilman Fertitta and Daryl Morey have met with Mike in West Virginia, but says a report that the two sides are nearing an agreement on an extension is not accurate: “It’s not exactly representing the situation. When they met..” pic.twitter.com/jgEYZEpBRx
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey clarified Monday that the team’s offer to coach Mike D’Antoni for the 2020-21 season never would have paid him less than the $5 million base salary Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta had described last week. Morey had previously confirmed a Houston Chronicle report on Friday that D’Antoni would be paid $2.5 million if the team failed to make the playoffs or if he was fired during that season. D’Antoni’s agent Warren LeGarie said the coach would not get the full $5 million if that were the case. However, the $2.5 million would only be if the Rockets did not bring him back for the 2020-21 season.
The $2.5 million, in the event D’Antoni was not brought back for 2020-2021, would not have an offset should he then choose to coach another team. In such a case, he would make the $2.5 million from the Rockets plus whatever he would earn from another team. D’Antoni, who had rejected the extension offer, will coach the 2019-20 season in the final year of his original four-year contract. That is not changed by the negotiations for an extension last week. D’Antoni is set to make $4.5 million next season. The Rockets extension offer included a $1 million bonus for each round of the playoffs the team won as D’Antoni’s agent said Friday and Morey confirmed.
The contract offer made to D’Antoni was considerably smaller than the $5 million that had been depicted by owner Tilman Fertitta and general manager Daryl Morey in a hastily called news conference Thursday, according to D’Antoni’s agent, leading to the decision to turn it down and coach next season in the final year of his current contract, which pays $4.5 million. Warren LeGarie said that the Rockets’ offer would not be worth $5 million in the 2020-21 season if the Rockets failed to make the playoffs or D’Antoni was fired during the season.
“I’d like clear up some inaccuracies that were stated about the offer made to Mike,” LeGarie said. “The reported $5 million is really $2.5 million because it comes with contingencies. One, it’s only $5 million if he makes the playoffs and two, if he is coaching the team at the end of the year. “If they decide to fire Mike in the proverbial change of direction he gets $2.5 million. If there is an injury or a change in the roster construction, of which Mike has no control, he nonetheless would become a victim of it.”
LeGarie emphasized that D’Antoni was in no way “insulted” by the offer. “We’re not here to criticize the offer,” LeGarie said. “We’re here to choose whether or not to accept it. We chose based on the current market for coaches of his stature as well as what he has done for the Rockets, the offer did not make sense for him, though I’m sure it makes sense for the Rockets. We don’t consider the offer insulting. It’s still real money. But it is our right not to take it.”
Houston Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni has ended talks with management on a contract extension, league sources told ESPN. D’Antoni plans to complete the final season of his deal in 2019-20 — which could become a pathway to his own free agency the next year. D’Antoni’s agent Warren LeGarie informed Rockets general manager Daryl Morey of the coach’s decision on Thursday afternoon, sources said.
The overhaul of the Rockets coaching staff took several additional deep cuts on Friday, with the Rockets letting four more staff members know they would not be back next season. Rockets assistant coach Roy Rogers will not receive a new contract for next season, his agent Warren LeGarie said on Friday, making Rogers the second top assistant on Mike D’Antoni’s staff for the past three seasons that will not be offered a new contract. Rockets assistant Mitch Vanya, video coordinator John Cho were also told they would not be brought back, a person with knowledge of the decision said. Rockets player development assistant Irv Roland said on Friday that he was also told he would not be back.
“The direct translation is ‘bee,’” Spander says. Further, the prophet Deborah appears in the book of Judges, and is the only female judge mentioned in the Bible. She is said to have prophesied a great battle, but Spander provides Jamison with a simpler summary: “Deborah was a tough chick.” Her client laughs, stretching a pearly smile. “Well, that makes sense, because you get s— done,” Jamison replies. Among other responsibilities, Spander represents coaches and front office executives for Wasserman. Just like her namesake, she is the only female in that sect of the NBA industry, competing with the fabled likes of Lonnie Cooper, Warren LeGarie and Steve Kauffman.
“This place is getting more business done, nobody even knows it, they don’t see it, they don’t always understand it, but there are signs,” Warren LeGarie said. “You can watch who’s talking to who, how they’re talking, what their reaction is. It’s the unknown known quantity of the summer league, but that’s our central nervous system right here.”
Ryan Wolstat: Ujiri also says he wanted to give Casey chance to address media. Adds report of Casey requesting extension wasn’t accurate. Says agent Warren LeGarie and him are in constant discussion. Nothing recent.
“Nothing extraordinary happens without a harmonic convergence of a lot of things out there, and usually it’s how you harness those different areas,” LeGarie said of the event, which set a record in attendance of 127,843 this month. “Don’t forget, when summer leagues started, it was mostly seen as a necessary evil, and most players saw it as some kind of a punishment when you played in them. There was some stigma in being a summer league player.”
Fifteen years ago the summer landscape was splintered, the exhibition calendar was a hodgepodge and the organizations involved were fly-by-night. “I went to every summer league, and people hated them,” said LeGarie, who is also an agent, representing coaches like Rick Carlisle of the Dallas Mavericks and Terry Stotts of the Portland Trail Blazers.
LeGarie started his career representing European players and coaches, bushwhacking across the world. He knew firsthand how badly all the N.B.A. business that went on during the summer needed to be harmonized in a central location. For years he bugged the league office and David Stern, then the N.B.A. commissioner, until he got the go-ahead to organize the Las Vegas league, heavily supported by the current commissioner, Adam Silver.
“I put a proposal on a size 21 shoe,” said Hall, who sent it off to the New York-New York Hotel and Casino. “It said, ‘We’re trying to get our foot in the door.’” Though the two men lost money the first year, by the second they were profitable. LeGarie and Hall are careful not to disparage their competition — the much smaller summer leagues in Orlando, Fla., and Utah — but it is clear they think teams that do not attend Vegas are making a poor decision, and are ceding a competitive advantage. The biggest differences between Las Vegas and Orlando, which hosts eight teams, are that in Orlando there are no fans and news media access is tightly controlled.
The hype surrounding Lonzo Ball and the Lakers-Celtics rivalry has led to Las Vegas Summer League history as Saturday’s session sold out by noon on Friday, according to Warren LeGarie, Las Vegas Summer League executive director. While there have been sellouts on the day of in seasons past, this marks the first time in the 14 years that the NBA summer league has been held at Las Vegas that an entire day session at the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion sold out of tickets in advance.
Scott Kushner: Robert Pack is no longer on the #Pelicans staff. He’s trying to land a G-League head coaching job, per his agent Warren LeGarie.
Meanwhile, an ESPN report that former Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown would likely end up on Fizdale’s bench was emphatically refuted by Brown’s agent. “It’s never been true nor was there ever a possibility,” Brown’s agent, Warren LeGarie, said. “Mike was asked and politely declined. We have no idea why one writer from ESPN continues to feed the narrative. I’ve never been called by him to confirm or deny and it’s just pure speculation without any legitimacy. That’s just irresponsible.”
George Karl’s agent, Warren LeGarie, told the Register in an email that Bobby Jackson should be fired or suspended. “(There’s) no place for that in a legitimate organization,” he said. A prominent coaching agent, LeGarie also represents D’Antoni and quickly recalls Worthy’s criticisms. He said analysts’ criticism can have real impact. “They condition their audience, which ultimately influences the management,” he said.
Warren LeGarie pointed out that Bobby Jackson is close to Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic, former teammates and two of the top three decision-makers in Sacramento. “It’s way more transparent when you know the cast of characters involved and way more obvious then,” LeGarie said. “Except to the fans who take what they say as gospel.”
Marc J. Spears: Quote from Kings head coach George Karl’s agent: “If they let George do his job and coach this team like he’s done in the past, they will get what they are both always seeking, respectability as a team and organization,” said agent Warren Legarie, who represents George Karl, to Yahoo! Sports.
Well, not all coaches. At a presentation on wearable technology organized by coaching agent Warren Legarie last year in Chicago, Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau raised his hand. Everyone in the audience knew where this was going. Thibodeau, fired last week by the Bulls and replaced by Iowa State’s Fred Hoiberg, had resisted overtures from Bulls management to employ wearable technology to monitor players’ recovery, league sources said. “He was basically challenging it, like, ‘Michael Jordan didn’t need that,’” Kopp said. “Fair point, but one of the most amazing athletes in the entire world, I would argue, would’ve benefited, too. There’s a reason why they call it old school, because it’s been replaced by new thinking.”
Darren Wolfson: W/ agent connection, Mitchell will be in the mix to join Joerger’s staff, if/when he lands w/ #Twolves. Would be a popular/interesting pick.
Darren Wolfson: Interesting spot for agent Warren LeGarie to be in. Represents both Dave Joerger and Sam Mitchell. #twolves
Ramona Shelburne: George Karl’s agent Warren LeGarie tells ESPN: “This was not the ideal situation, obviously George would’ve preferred to stay on. But I can’t praise Josh Kroenke enough for the way in which he handled a really difficult situation.”
Ronald Tillery: Fyi: agent Warren LeGarie represents Hollins, Karl, Gentry and Joerger
The Memphis Grizzlies have told coach Lionel Hollins that he is free to talk to other teams before his contract expires at the end of this month, a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed to USA TODAY Sports. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the issue. While it remains possible that Hollins could return, this is a clear sign that negotiations on a new contract have stalled. According to the person, Hollins had a three-hour meeting with Grizzlies CEO Jason Levien on Thursday that went well and negotiations in subsequent days took place with his agent, Warren LeGarie.
Here’s what we know for sure: As the Lakers-Kings game ended Sunday night, Mitch Kupchak called D’Antoni’s agent, Warren Legarie, at home. “Let’s do a deal,” said Kupchak, according to LeGarie. “C’mon, Mitch, you’re not using us, are you?” said a stunned LeGarie, according to LeGarie. Kupchak assured him he was in earnest. LeGarie pulled himself together and a deal was soon done. “We were as surprised as everybody waking up and reading about it,” LeGarie said the next morning.
Mike Brown has been fired by the Los Angeles Lakers, according to his agent Warren Legarie. The Lakers are off to a 1-4 start and will play Golden State tonight at the Staples Center.
